I'm celebrating the Age of Asparagus a day early this 12 months, because final 365 days I emerge as so busy with other May Day festivities that I completely forgot to do a blog post.
Unfortunately, this spring our asparagus patch isn't always giving us a incredible deal to have amusing. We've harvested nice a handful of spears so far, and right now there aren't extra than three or 4 incipient ones available. Most of the shoots we've got had so far have been so skinny, we allow them to move right away to fern with out bothering to pick out them.
And the new asparagus plants we added in the decrease returned backyard years again, which should theoretically be mature enough to eat this 365 days, are helping any. In fact, of the 10 vegetation we installed, handiest 5 appear to have arise the least bit, and that they look even scrawnier and extra pathetic than the asparagus in the facet outdoor.
Fortunately, as you may see on the far stop of the mattress, we do have one spring vegetable inside the backyard that isn't letting us down: our trusty rhubarb plant life. After an early and warm spring, they're already searching pretty big, bushy, and healthy. Brian has already had to go out severa times to remove the flower spikes so the plants will placed extra of their power into generating wholesome, match for human intake stalks.
We've already tried one new rhubarb recipe this year, using some (but by no means the last) of the rhubarb we had frozen from last year's bountiful crop. Savory, the freebie magazine they give out at Stop & Shop, had several interesting recipes in its spring issue, and one of them was a simple rhubarb and strawberry compote that looked like an ideal dessert for the Passover Seder. We made a double recipe of it, which turned out to be way more than we needed for the family, so we had a whole jar left over to enjoy during the eight days of Passover. It turns out to make a good topping for matzo brei (which presumably would be equally good on waffles or pancakes), and it's also good with the potato-based porridge I eat as an alternative Passover breakfast. And, of course, it's also quite nice with vanilla ice cream.
For tonight, though, we're going with an old standby: Skillet Chicken and Rhubarb. Brian was thinking of making it with quinoa as an alternative to the usual polenta, since we picked some up at the Whole Earth Center and we need to use it somehow. But since we've never done it that way before, we decided to stick with the tried-and-true polenta rather than risk messing up one of our favorite dishes. We'll think of something else to do with the quinoa, possibly in a veggie dish that can serve as our Recipe of the Month for May.
So tonight, it's rhubarb for dinner, and possibly rhubarb for dessert as well, since we still have a tiny bit of the compote left. And then tomorrow, it's up long before the day-o to welcome in the May-o.
